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Dutch far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders said on Wednesday that he was resuming his election campaign, just days after suspending his activities due to reports that he was a possible target of a suspected plot in Belgium to kill politicians.
Three young men were arrested in Belgium on Thursday after investigators discovered a homemade explosive which the suspects were allegedly planning to attach to a drone to carry out the attack.
Prosecutors said the police raids were part of an investigation into “attempted terrorist murder and participation in the activities of a terrorist group”. Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever was also identified by Belgian government ministers as a possible target.
Wilders had cancelled various TV and radio debates after the Dutch National Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism and Safety confirmed that he was one of the targets.
But in a post on X on Wednesday, the anti-Islam and anti-immigration lawmaker said he was “getting back to work”.
“Elections are coming, it is campaign time and I feel a great responsibility toward the Netherlands and PVV voters,” Wilders said in a written statement.
He noted that he has lived under round-the-clock protection for 21 years because of “countless death threats of all shapes and sizes”.
The PVV leads polls heading into the 29 October election for all 150 seats in the Second Chamber, the lower house of the Dutch parliament.
The Netherlands’ system of proportional representation combined with a splintered political landscape all but guarantees a coalition government.
It remains to be seen if Wilders can form a right-wing coalition if he wins the most seats. The leader of the centre-right Party for Freedom and Democracy has said that she won’t join a coalition with Wilders’ party.
The PVV won the Netherlands’ last election in late 2023 and was the biggest bloc in a four-party ruling coalition until earlier this year, when Wilders pulled his ministers out of the government in a dispute over a crackdown on migration.
The party’s manifesto for the upcoming election calls for measures including for a total halt to asylum-seekers entering the Netherlands, military patrols at borders to enforce the ban and the closure of recently opened asylum-seeker centres.
Additional sources • AP